TASM

[jason taylor]

What are their proper tactics-specifically in "Barants Sea Loiter"

[Dr.Sid]

All around, sending TASM on frigates or even destroyers is useless. TASMs are slow. They will be shot down, if you send them one by one. If you send them all at once, it is quite possible that all will folow same chaff cloud and miss.
Use torpedoes for vessels with anti-missile defense. TASMs are good only for defenseless targets.
Harpoon is better. It is smaller and faster. But hardly a chance against big ships with missiles, guns and countermeasures.
Torpedo is always better. Yeah .. you must get closer, but that's what's sub good in. Any bloody frigate can shoot Harpoons, but only sub can get close enough to shoot torpedoes.

[sonar732]

What I generally do is disable the vessel with torpedo's and then take them out with TASM's. I'm closer to them and they watch from 'scope view...awesome show!

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

What are their proper tactics-specifically in "Barants Sea Loiter"

Here's the two options I use:

Localize the target as best you can using ESM and sonar, or even just by guessing from the information about the target's initial location, course and speed. The missile's seeker will take care of any uncertainty if you just get it in the ballpark.

Shoot a maximum sized salvo of TASMs. That means all twelve VLS tubes plus 4 torpedo tubes (16 missiles). Don't worry so much about whether all your TASMS hit or not. It only takes 1 or 2 hits to essentially put a ship out of action, so even if you manage to just pick off one of the escorts you've accomplished the goal. The point of shooting a lot of them at once is to improve the odds that at least one of them penetrates his AAW defenses and electronic warfare.

Start closing (quickly).

If you want to try a second salvo, follow up with another max sized salvo of 4 Harpoons.

Next, quickly close to engage with torpedoes. You don't want to be anywhere near the datum you just left by shooting all those missiles. Don't go too slow.

The second option requires more patience:

Get within the limiting lines of approach of the formation, slowly get close to them and engage with torpedoes when you're in range.

I haven't made up my mind about which is the best tactic, necessarily, but I can say that the second tactic is more time consuming and requires more navigational skill. The good thing is that in a nuke, you don't have to worry so much about being in a tail chase, so you'll probably be able to get off lots of shots if you use the second option.

[Bill Nichols]

I never load TASMs -- the Navy converted theirs to TLAM long ago...

[Dr.Sid]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

I never load TASMs -- the Navy converted theirs to TLAM long ago...

Well .. TASMs are better than nothing, and to equip TLAMs on ASuW mission is useless. Reality is reality, but DW is DW

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

Well .. TASMs are better than nothing, and to equip TLAMs on ASuW mission is useless. Reality is reality, but DW is DW

There's nothing wrong with equipping yourself the way the actual platform would be equipped in that mission.


That being said, I think the best use of the TASM against SAM-equipped ships is to fire at least 8 missiles from a range of between 5-10 miles. You might get away with 6 in some cases, but its chancey. Of course, if you can get that close, a torpedo will get the job done too. I usually only fire the missiles if I know I'm detected and I want to take out the ASROC shooters before they put some serious hurt on me.

The other way to use them would be to hit the capital ships immediately after the escorts have moved out of position due to torpedo evasion. It's basicly a sucker punch, and you hit them with the whole VLS.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

Well .. TASMs are better than nothing, and to equip TLAMs on ASuW mission is useless. Reality is reality, but DW is DW

That's cheesy to me, I don't like to do that kind of power gaming. I think if one is going to use them, one should be conscious of what they're doing, and compose scenarios appropriately. The Barents Sea Loiter is fun because you can play it with or without TASMs, but sometimes that's not always the case. In a lot of scenarios, if you change the weapons you change the whole game.

[Sea Demon]

I've heard on some sites that the newer version of Tomahawk (I can't remember what variant it's called), is dual land-attack/anti-ship capable. If this is true, can't we model this version by changing the database and modeling that capability?

And if true, that means 688(I) boats do have an anti-ship Tomahawk role IRL.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

I never load TASMs -- the Navy converted theirs to TLAM long ago...

There's nothing that says we need to play in the present day time frame. I think it's interesting to compare how different technologies (TASM for example) change one's tactics. The conscious exploration of alternatives is one of the joys of wargaming. So, sometimes I play in 1988, sometimes I play in 2007.

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

Get within the limiting lines of approach of the formation, slowly get close to them and engage with torpedoes when you're in range.

For this mission, that means you take the information given in the briefing, mark the expected course on the map at one hour intervals, go deep and fast on course 270. When you intersect the line you marked, slow down and wait for them or approach quietly. Every time I played it, the briefing information in this mission was so good the enemy group would pass over your position, at the expected time.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Wim Libaers

For this mission, that means you take the information given in the briefing, mark the expected course on the map at one hour intervals, go deep and fast on course 270. When you intersect the line you marked, slow down and wait for them or approach quietly. Every time I played it, the briefing information in this mission was so good the enemy group would pass over your position, at the expected time.

I'm not sure that's always the best way to do it. My experience has been that if you try to get directly in front of a formation, you're usually going to get detected and pounded. That's fine if you're going to try to shoot your way past the screens to get at high value units but often that's not the wisest course of action.

Instead, I try to come in offset somewhat. That's sort of where it gets kind of squishy, because if the formation is designed smartly, to avoid detection you need to be super precise in your maneuvers.

The other option is to get behind them and shoot wakehomers from behind. It's not always such a bad idea in terms of survivability, but sometimes you can't always sink a ship.

Which mission is this, btw?

[Wim Libaers]

Originally Posted by SeaQueen

I'm not sure that's always the best way to do it. My experience has been that if you try to get directly in front of a formation, you're usually going to get detected and pounded. That's fine if you're going to try to shoot your way past the screens to get at high value units but often that's not the wisest course of action.

Instead, I try to come in offset somewhat. That's sort of where it gets kind of squishy, because if the formation is designed smartly, to avoid detection you need to be super precise in your maneuvers.

The other option is to get behind them and shoot wakehomers from behind. It's not always such a bad idea in terms of survivability, but sometimes you can't always sink a ship.

Which mission is this, btw?

Barents sea loiter. In this mission, I've achieved success by simply staying ahead of them out of active sonar range, and sending passive adcaps to meet them head-on. TASM doesn't work well here initially because the escorts have good SAM systems. However, once a few of the escorts are out of action, it can work.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Wim Libaers

Barents sea loiter. In this mission, I've achieved success by simply staying ahead of them out of active sonar range, and sending passive adcaps to meet them head-on. TASM doesn't work well here initially because the escorts have good SAM systems. However, once a few of the escorts are out of action, it can work.

That should work.

I've never had any problem with the TASM in this scenario, though. Honestly, I think the TASM makes the scenario a bit too easy because they give you enough information to target the Russian SAG as soon as you receive the radio message. It's never out of range, so I can usually destroy at least one of the escorts using a salvo of TASMs.

The fact that they have good SAMs is the only thing that prevents me from destroying the entire battle group as soon as I get the radio message, actually. With a salvo size of 16 missiles, statistics says that at least one or two is almost certain to hit something. Suppose that a single missile only has a one in ten chance of getting through their missiles and chaff. Then the probablity of scoring at least one hit given a salvo size of 16 missiles is

pk = 1-(1-0.1)^16 = 0.81

That's pretty good! I like those odds! The large salvo size lets you compensate for the relatively slow missile.

After clearing the datum from my initial cruise missile attack, I make another attack with the Harpoons. The salvo size is smaller, but they're faster and so individually they they are a little bit more likely to make it through the Russian formation's defenses. A salvo of four missiles usually does okay as well. With a little luck I can sometimes destroy a second escort.

Then I have to clear the datum again...

By that time I'm ready to make an attack with my torpedoes and finish off anything that survived the two strikes already made against it. For this I use tactics similar to what you described.